


Happiness

by SharpestRose



Category: Firefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-17
Updated: 2011-07-17
Packaged: 2017-10-21 12:23:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's not a girl who misses much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happiness

She will say: _It began with a big bang. A soldier whose heart was broken and flying kicked the lid of her coffin away, and so the princess woke up and screamed._

-

In the slow comedown, after the first time she goes to his bunk, she examines the things he keeps close.

"Do you feel," River asks, bending low to inspect the pistols pinned to the wall down near the floor. "That's it's appropriate to call a gun, a weapon long associated with phallic imagery, by a girl's name?"

Jayne grunts. "I dunno. Felt right."

"Maybe that's why you have a girl's name. Maybe all weapons require a feminine aspect. Maybe that explains why she has this shape, though it leaves the alterations and deletions up for question."

"I ain't a girl."

"I know." She glances over her shoulder at him, her hair brushing against the bare skin of her back. "If she'd wanted that, she'd've gone to Kaylee. Like Simon did."

She knows the words cut him. She's glad. He looks better in red.

-

She will say: _Once there lived a girl who had no Father or Mother, so instead she had a Brother and an Other._

-

Third time's the charm, the sayings say, and on the third night she says "I'm going to tell Simon."

"Whoa now," Jayne protests, and shakes his head. His palms cup her shoulders. She likes that he doesn't touch her like she's fragile. "Let's not be hasty. Doc won't take kindly to his little sister acting like she's got a spine in her."

"He'll make this face," River agrees, imitating the expression Simon will wear and bringing her fingertips up to cradle her cheek. "His tongue will get clogged up with spluttery names to call you."

And nobody but her will hear the long-ago clink of the family crystal toasting the perfect scores she got on her theoretical physics exam, while Simon had to smile at 'and look at this boy, top three percent! You'll have to try harder to match your sister!', and nobody but her will remember the flicker of a glare in his eyes, and nobody will hear the scratch of his pen in his journal later, or see his even letters spell out 'I hate that she will always find a way across the ravines which leave me stranded' on the paper. And nobody but her will see the resentment in her frown, the hurt, because _Simon_ should understand, _Simon_ should know that it's nothing so simple as that, and nobody but her will hear the pad-pad of her smaller, ghost-child feet across his floor as she throws the book at him and says 'your poetic metaphor is belaboured and awkward, and your jealousy petty and demeaning to us both'.

"He tore the pages out the next day. Pulled the binding loose. I didn't know the book would fall apart as a result," she tells Jayne gravely, and pities him for the uncomprehending wariness in his eyes.

-

She will say: _There is nothing but the black for ever and ever and ever and ever, and we choose the meanings which fill that black up like soup in pots._

-

She finds Simon hours after she has told him, and sees that his eyes are still red and his hands still shake, and she says "They made her so she'll never have a whole person in her, you know."

He looks up. He looks weary. "What?"

"The things they did. Made her broken. Nobody inside, the carpets torn up and a lie reading no vacancy in the window. Thought that'd make it easier in the long run. Forgot that family don't take kindly to razing on the manor grounds."

"Oh, River," he says, speaking to her the way he does when he knows how to love her. When it's a simple matter of protection and fixing. Things aren't complicated until they're equalised. "That's not true. You're a whole person. You're making a big mistake, but -"

"She's forgotten what it was when nothing was confusing. He's never known it in the first place. They match inside the buzz of misunderstanding." Suddenly furious, she hurries away from her brother, scared that she'll do something dangerous if she stays. "At least we know we're lost," she shouts as she runs.

-

She will say: _This is a ship where the soldier whose heart is flying and broken has decided to make a meaning. But don't eat the soup. Kaylee puts too much salt in it, and nobody says so. Protecting those loved means putting up with salt._

-

River finds Shepherd Book in the kitchen.

"There was a card on the shelf on my father's birthday, informing him that life began at forty," she says. "Which is considerably after conception. Are you willing to include this piece of apocrypha into your understanding of the human lifespan?"

Shepherd Book blinks. "You want to talk about the question of when it is that life begins?"

"Oh, it's begun already. He's in there waiting for his turn," she explains calmly. "It's all going-tos and potentialities. Not enough figures to make a proper gradient yet."

Zoe comes in, switching the kettle on and looking for a clean mug. It was Jayne's turn to do the washing up. He didn't.

River suspects the blame lies on her. It's refreshing to be guilty of the crime she carries the burden for.

"What're you two talking about?" Zoe asks.

"Four ravens," River answers. "And seven. For a secret." She smiles at Zoe. Zoe gives her a puzzled look.

"Four ravens. You'll see," River says again.

-

She'll say: _Take that out of your mouth, it's undignified for a terrible lizard to meet such a fate_ , and the little boy will smile at her and chew on the plastic dinosaur's tail, and she will only feel that crystal-clink jealousy at Zoe and Wash for a moment before she smiles.


End file.
